You were probably expecting me to finish that statement with the phraze

the chicken or the egg?

However, after watching clips of Alan Mulally of Ford, Robert Nardelli of Chrysler LLC, and Rick Wagoner of General Motors jet-setting to Capitol Hill and treat our Senators with arrogance and disdain, I offer new choices to the question. Instead of the chicken or the egg, I would like to suggest…

Who came first…the Corporate CEO or the CEO televangelist?

After seeing the clips and most of the re-runs on C-Span, the first thing that came to my mind as these three CEO’s strutted their arrogance and refuse to disclose both their annual salaries and how much money they really needed was that they are now starting to act like another group of CEO’s

televangelists

The attitudes of the Big Three CEO’s mirrored the attitudes of the now named ‘Grassley Six’ when six prominent televangelists were asked by Senator Chuck Grassley specific questions about their incomes and how they spent donations specifically earmarked for ministry endeavors. In fact, the Big Three CEO and the Televangelist have more in common than you think.

They flew in on jets.

They had corporate limos waiting for them upon their arrival

They feel they are above reproach when asked about their annual salary

They feel they are above reproach when asked why they need “X” amount of money.

They treat those who question their salary, question their need for money, and question their management style and the potential to cut away the ‘fat’ as ‘public enemy number one (called ’secular humanistic devil’ in the televangelist world)’

Big Three CEO’s blame the union for not working hard enough and getting big salaries. Televangelists blame their viewers for not praying/repenting hard/long enough and holding back money from them. Big Three CEO’s go after their ‘little men’ to lay them off in order to keep their perks. Televangelists and big time parachurch ministries lay off employees to maintain their big buildings.

Did the televangelists learn from Corporate CEO’s on how to deal with Senators and create corporate churches?

or

Did the Big Three take a page from the televangelist handbook on how to deal with Senators and eventually form Church corporations?

Too chicken to reveal the truth or too scrambled to receive egg on their faces….